The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde

Chapter 4

One afternoon, a month later, Dorian Gray was reclining in a luxurious arm-chair, in the little
library of Lord Henry’s house in Mayfair. It was, in its way, a very charming room, with its high-panelled wainscoting
of olive-stained oak, its cream-coloured frieze and ceiling of raised plaster-work, and its brickdust felt carpet
strewn with silk long-fringed Persian rugs. On a tiny satinwood table stood a statuette by Clodion, and beside it lay a
copy of ”Les Cent Nouvelles,” bound for Margaret of Valois by Clovis Eve, and powdered with the gilt daisies
that Queen had selected for her device. Some large blue china jars and parrot-tulips were ranged on the mantel-shelf,
and through the small leaded panels of the window streamed the apricot-coloured light of a summer day in London.

Lord Henry had not yet come in. He was always late on principle, his principle being that punctuality is the thief
of time. So the lad was looking rather sulky, as with listless fingers he turned over the pages of an
elaborately-illustrated edition of ”Manon Lescaut“ that he had found in one of the bookcases. The formal
monotonous ticking of the Louis Quatorze clock annoyed him. Once or twice he thought of going away.

At last he heard a step outside, and the door opened. “How late you are, Harry!” he murmured.

“I am afraid it is not Harry, Mr. Gray,” answered a shrill voice.

He glanced quickly round, and rose to his feet. “I beg your pardon. I thought ——”

“You thought it was my husband. It is only his wife. You must let me introduce myself. I know you quite well by your
photographs. I think my husband has got seventeen of them.”

“Not seventeen, Lady Henry?”

“Well, eighteen, then. And I saw you with him the other night at the Opera.” She laughed nervously as she spoke, and
watched him with her vague forget-me-not eyes. She was a curious woman, whose dresses always looked as if they had been
designed in a rage and put on in a tempest. She was usually in love with somebody, and, as her passion was never
returned, she had kept all her illusions. She tried to look picturesque, but only succeeded in being untidy. Her name
was Victoria, and she had a perfect mania for going to church.

“That was at ‘Lohengrin,’ Lady Henry, I think?”

“Yes; it was at dear ‘Lohengrin.’ I like Wagner’s music better than anybody’s. It is so loud that one can talk the
whole time without other people hearing what one says. That is a great advantage: don’t you think so, Mr. Gray?”

The same nervous staccato laugh broke from her thin lips, and her fingers began to play with a long tortoise-shell
paper-knife.

Dorian smiled, and shook his head: “I am afraid I don’t think so, Lady Henry. I never talk during music, at least,
during good music. If one hears bad music, it is one’s duty to drown it in conversation.”

“Ah! that is one of Harry’s views, isn’t it, Mr. Gray? I always hear Harry’s views from his friends. It is the only
way I get to know of them. But you must not think I don’t like good music. I adore it, but I am afraid of it. It makes
me too romantic. I have simply worshipped pianists — two at a time, sometimes, Harry tells me. I don’t know what it is
about them. Perhaps it is that they are foreigners. They all are, ain’t they? Even those that are born in England
become foreigners after a time, don’t they? It is so clever of them, and such a compliment to art. Makes it quite
cosmopolitan, doesn’t it? You have never been to any of my parties, have you, Mr. Gray? You must come. I can’t afford
orchids, but I spare no expense in foreigners. They make one’s rooms look so picturesque. But here is Harry! — Harry, I
came in to look for you, to ask you something — I forget what it was — and I found Mr. Gray here. We have had such a
pleasant chat about music. We have quite the same ideas. No; I think our ideas are quite different. But he has been
most pleasant. I am so glad I’ve seen him.”

“I am charmed, my love, quite charmed,” said Lord Henry, elevating his dark crescent-shaped eyebrows and looking at
them both with an amused smile. “So sorry I am late, Dorian. I went to look after a piece of old brocade in Wardour
Street, and had to bargain for hours for it. Nowadays people know the price of everything, and the value of
nothing.”

“I am afraid I must be going,” exclaimed Lady Henry, breaking an awkward silence with her silly sudden laugh. “I
have promised to drive with the Duchess. Good-bye, Mr. Gray. Good-bye, Harry. You are dining out, I suppose? So am I.
Perhaps I shall see you at Lady Thornbury’s .”

“I daresay, my dear,” said Lord Henry, shutting the door behind her, as, looking like a bird of paradise that had
been out all night in the rain, she flitted out of the room, leaving a faint odour of frangipanni. Then he lit a
cigarette, and flung himself down on the sofa.

“Never marry a woman with straw-coloured hair, Dorian,” he said, after a few puffs.

“Why, Harry?”

“Because they are so sentimental.”

“But I like sentimental people.”

“Never marry at all, Dorian. Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious; both are
disappointed.”

“I don’t think I am likely to marry, Henry. I am too much in love. That is one of your aphorisms. I am putting it
into practice, as I do everything that you say.”

“Who are you in love with?” asked Lord Henry, after a pause.

“With an actress,” said Dorian Gray, blushing.

Lord Henry shrugged his shoulders. “That is a rather commonplace début.”

“You would not say so if you saw her, Harry.”

“Who is she?”

“Her name is Sibyl Vane.”

“Never heard of her.”

“No one has. People will some day, however. She is a genius.”

“My dear boy, no woman is a genius. Women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it
charmingly. Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over
morals.”

“Harry, how can you?”

“My dear Dorian, it is quite true. I am analysing women at the present, so I ought to know. The subject is not so
abstruse as I thought it was. I find that, ultimately, there are only two kinds of women, the plain and the coloured.
The plain women are very useful. If you want to gain a reputation for respectability, you have merely to take them down
to supper. The other women are very charming. They commit one mistake, however. They paint in order to try and look
young. Our grandmothers painted in order to try and talk brilliantly. Rouge and esprit used to go
together. That is all over now. As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly
satisfied. As for conversation, there are only five women in London worth talking to, and two of these can’t be
admitted into decent society. However, tell me about your genius. How long have you known her?”

“Ah! Harry, your views terrify me.”

“Never mind that. How long have you known her?”

“About three weeks.”

“And where did you come across her?”

“I will tell you, Harry; but you mustn’t be unsympathetic about it. After all, it never would have happened if I had
not met you. You filled me with a wild desire to know everything about life. For days after I met you, something seemed
to throb in my veins. As I lounged in the Park, or strolled down Piccadilly, I used to look at every one who passed me,
and wonder, with a mad curiosity, what sort of lives they led. Some of them fascinated me. Others filled me with
terror. There was an exquisite poison in the air. I had a passion for sensations. . . . Well, one evening
about seven o’clock, I determined to go out in search of some adventure. I felt that this grey, monstrous London of
ours, with its myriads of people, its sordid sinners, and its splendid sins, as you once phrased it, must have
something in store for me. I fancied a thousand things. The mere danger gave me a sense of delight. I remembered what
you had said to me on that wonderful evening when we first dined together, about the search for beauty being the real
secret of life. I don’t know what I expected, but I went out and wandered eastward, soon losing my way in a labyrinth
of grimy streets and black, grassless squares. About half-past eight I passed by an absurd little theatre, with great
flaring gas-jets and gaudy play-bills. A hideous Jew, in the most amazing waistcoat I ever beheld in my life, was
standing at the entrance, smoking a vile cigar. He had greasy ringlets, and an enormous diamond blazed in the centre of
a soiled shirt. ‘Have a box, my Lord?’ he said, when he saw me, and he took off his hat with an air of gorgeous
servility. There was something about him, Harry, that amused me. He was such a monster. You will laugh at me, I know,
but I really went in and paid a whole guinea for the stage-box. To the present day I can’t make out why I did so; and
yet if I hadn’t — my dear Harry, if I hadn’t, I should have missed the greatest romance of my life. I see you are
laughing. It is horrid of you!”

“I am not laughing, Dorian; at least I am not laughing at you. But you should not say the greatest romance of your
life. You should say the first romance of your life. You will always be loved, and you will always be in love with
love. A grande passion is the privilege of people who have nothing to do. That is the one use of the idle
classes of a country. Don’t be afraid. There are exquisite things in store for you. This is merely the beginning.”

“Do you think my nature so shallow?” cried Dorian Gray, angrily.

“No; I think your nature so deep.”

“How do you mean?”

“My dear boy, the people who love only once in their lives are really the shallow people. What they call their
loyalty, and their fidelity, I call either the lethargy of custom or their lack of imagination. Faithfulness is to the
emotional life what consistency is to the life of the intellect — simply a confession of failures. Faithfulness! I must
analyse it some day. The passion for property is in it. There are many things that we would throw away if we were not
afraid that others might pick them up. But I don’t want to interrupt you. Go on with your story.”

“Well, I found myself seated in a horrid little private box, with a vulgar drop-scene staring me in the face. I
looked out from behind the curtain, and surveyed the house. It was a tawdry affair, all Cupids and cornucopias, like a
third-rate wedding cake. The gallery and pit were fairy full, but the two rows of dingy stalls were quite empty, and
there was hardly a person in what I suppose they called the dress-circle. Women went about with oranges and
ginger-beer, and there was a terrible consumption of nuts going on.”

“It must have been just like the palmy days of the British Drama.”

“Just like, I should fancy, and very depressing. I began to wonder what on earth I should do, when I caught sight of
the play-bill. What do you think the play was, Harry?”

“I should think ‘The Idiot Boy, or Dumb but Innocent.’ Our fathers used to like that sort of piece, I believe. The
longer I live, Dorian, the more keenly I feel that whatever was good enough for our fathers is not good enough for us.
In art, as in politics, les grandpères ont toujours tort.”

“This play was good enough for us, Harry. It was ‘Romeo and Juliet.’ I must admit that I was rather annoyed at the
idea of seeing Shakespeare done in such a wretched hole of a place. Still, I felt interested, in a sort of way. At any
rate, I determined to wait for the first act. There was a dreadful orchestra, presided over by a young Hebrew who sat
at a cracked piano, that nearly drove me away, but at last the drop-scene was drawn up, and the play began. Romeo was a
stout elderly gentleman, with corked eyebrows, a husky tragedy voice, and a figure like a beer-barrel. Mercutio was
almost as bad. He was played by the low-comedian, who had introduced gags of his own and was on most friendly terms
with the pit. They were both as grotesque as the scenery, and that looked as if it had come out of a country-booth. But
Juliet! Harry, imagine a girl, hardly seventeen years of age, with a little flower-like face, a small Greek head with
plaited coils of dark-brown hair, eyes that were violet wells of passion, lips that were like the petals of a rose. She
was the loveliest thing I had ever seen in my life. You said to me once that pathos left you unmoved, but that beauty,
mere beauty, could fill your eyes with tears. I tell you, Harry, I could hardly see this girl for the mist of tears
that came across me. And her voice — I never heard such a voice. It was very low at first, with deep mellow notes, that
seemed to fall singly upon one’s ear. Then it became a little louder, and sounded like a flute or a distant hautbois.
In the garden-scene it had all the tremulous ecstasy that one hears just before dawn when nightingales are singing.
There were moments, later on, when it had the wild passion of violins. You know how a voice can stir one. Your voice
and the voice of Sibyl Vane are two things that I shall never forget. When I close my eyes, I hear them, and each of
them says something different. I don’t know which to follow. Why should I not love her? Harry, I do love her. She is
everything to me in life. Night after night I go to see her play. One evening she is Rosalind, and the next evening she
is Imogen. I have seen her die in the gloom of an Italian tomb, sucking the poison from her lover’s lips. I have
watched her wandering through the forest of Arden, disguised as a pretty boy in hose and doublet and dainty cap. She
has been mad, and has come into the presence of a guilty king, and given him rue to wear, and bitter herbs to taste of.
She has been innocent, and the black hands of jealousy have crushed her reed-like throat. I have seen her in every age
and in every costume. Ordinary women never appeal to one’s imagination. They are limited to their century. No glamour
ever transfigures them. One knows their minds as easily as one knows their bonnets. One can always find them. There is
no mystery in any of them. They ride in the Park in the morning, and chatter at tea-parties in the afternoon. They have
their stereotyped smile, and their fashionable manner. They are quite obvious. But an actress! How different an actress
is! Harry! why didn’t you tell me that the only thing worth loving is an actress?”

“Because I have loved so many of them, Dorian.”

“Oh, yes, horrid people with dyed hair and painted faces.”

“Don’t run down dyed hair and painted faces. There is an extraordinary charm in them, sometimes,” said Lord
Henry.

“I wish now I had not told you about Sibyl Vane.”

“You could not have helped telling me, Dorian. All through your life you will tell me everything you do.”

“Yes, Harry, I believe that is true. I cannot help telling you things. You have a curious influence over me. If I
ever did a crime, I would come and confess it to you. You would understand me.”

“People like you — the wilful sunbeams of life — don’t commit crimes, Dorian. But I am much obliged for the
compliment, all the same. And now tell me — reach me the matches, like a good boy: thanks:— what are your actual
relations with Sibyl Vane?”

“It is only the sacred things that are worth touching, Dorian,” said Lord Henry, with a strange touch of pathos in
his voice. “But why should you be annoyed? I suppose she will belong to you some day. When one is in love, one always
begins by deceiving one’s self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance. You
know her, at any rate, I suppose?”

“Of course I know her. On the first night I was at the theatre, the horrid old Jew came round to the box after the
performance was over, and offered to take me behind the scenes and introduce me to her. I was furious with him, and
told him that Juliet had been dead for hundreds of years, and that her body was lying in a marble tomb in Verona. I
think, from his blank look of amazement, that he was under the impression that I had taken too much champagne, or
something.”

“I am not surprised.”

“Then he asked me if I wrote for any of the newspapers. I told him I never even read them. He seemed terribly
disappointed at that, and confided to me that all the dramatic critics were in a conspiracy against him, and that they
were every one of them to be bought.”

“I should not wonder if he was quite right there. But, on the other hand, judging from their appearance, most of
them cannot be at all expensive.”

“Well, he seemed to think they were beyond his means,” laughed Dorian. “By this time, however, the lights were being
put out in the theatre, and I had to go. He wanted me to try some cigars that he strongly recommended. I declined. The
next night, of course, I arrived at the place again. When he saw me he made me a low bow, and assured me that I was a
munificent patron of art. He was a most offensive brute, though he had an extraordinary passion for Shakespeare. He
told me once, with an air of pride, that his five bankruptcies were entirely due to ‘The Bard,’ as he insisted on
calling him. He seemed to think it a distinction.”

“It was a distinction, my dear Dorian — a great distinction. Most people become bankrupt through having invested too
heavily in the prose of life. To have ruined one’s self over poetry is an honour. But when did you first speak to Miss
Sibyl Vane?”

“The third night. She had been playing Rosalind. I could not help going round. I had thrown her some flowers, and
she had looked at me; at least I fancied that she had. The old Jew was persistent. He seemed determined to take me
behind, so I consented. It was curious my not wanting to know her, wasn’t it?”

“No; I don’t think so.”

“My dear Harry, why?”

“I will tell you some other time. Now I want to know about the girl.”

“Sibyl? Oh, she was so shy, and so gentle. There is something of a child about her. Her eyes opened wide in
exquisite wonder when I told her what I thought of her performance, and she seemed quite unconscious of her power. I
think we were both rather nervous. The old Jew stood grinning at the doorway of the dusty greenroom, making elaborate
speeches about us both, while we stood looking at each other like children. He would insist on calling me ‘My Lord,’ so
I had to assure Sibyl that I was not anything of the kind. She said quite simply to me, ‘You look more like a prince. I
must call you Prince Charming.’”

“Upon my word, Dorian, Miss Sibyl knows how to pay compliments.”

“You don’t understand her, Harry. She regarded me merely as a person in a play. She knows nothing of life. She lives
with her mother, a faded tired woman who played Lady Capulet in a sort of magenta dressing-wrapper on the first night,
and looks as if she had seen better days.”

“The Jew wanted to tell me her history, but I said it did not interest me.”

“You were quite right. There is always something infinitely mean about other people’s tragedies.”

“Sibyl is the only thing I care about. What is it to me where she came from? From her little head to her little
feet, she is absolutely and entirely divine. Every night of my life I go to see her act, and every night she is more
marvellous.”

“That is the reason, I suppose, that you never dine with me now. I thought you must have some curious romance on
hand. You have; but it is not quite what I expected.”

“My dear Harry, we either lunch or sup together every day, and I have been to the Opera with you several times,”
said Dorian, opening his blue eyes in wonder.

“You always come dreadfully late.”

“Well, I can’t help going to see Sibyl play,” he cried, “even if it is only for a single act. I get hungry for her
presence; and when I think of the wonderful soul that is hidden away in that little ivory body, I am filled with
awe.”

“You can dine with me to-night, Dorian, can’t you?”

He shook his head. “To-night she is Imogen,” he answered, “and to-morrow night she will be Juliet.”

“When is she Sibyl Vane?”

“Never.”

“I congratulate you.”

“How horrid you are! She is all the great heroines of the world in one. She is more than an individual. You laugh,
but I tell you she has genius. I love her, and I must make her love me. You, who know all the secrets of life, tell me
how to charm Sibyl Vane to love me! I want to make Romeo jealous. I want the dead lovers of the world to hear our
laughter, and grow sad. I want a breath of our passion to stir their dust into consciousness, to wake their ashes into
pain. My God, Harry, how I worship her!” He was walking up and down the room as he spoke. Hectic spots of red burned on
his cheeks. He was terribly excited.

Lord Henry watched him with a subtle sense of pleasure. How different he was now from the shy, frightened boy he had
met in Basil Hallward’s studio! His nature had developed like a flower, had borne blossoms of scarlet flame. Out of its
secret hiding-place had crept his Soul, and Desire had come to meet it on the way.

“And what do you propose to do?” said Lord Henry, at last.

“I want you and Basil to come with me some night and see her act. I have not the slightest fear of the result. You
are certain to acknowledge her genius. Then we must get her out of the Jew’s hands. She is bound to him for three years
— at least for two years and eight months — from the present time. I shall have to pay him something, of course. When
all that is settled, I shall take a West End theatre and bring her out properly. She will make the world as mad as she
has made me.”

“That would be impossible, my dear boy?”

“Yes, she will. She has not merely art, consummate art-instinct, in her, but she has personality also; and you have
often told me that it is personalities, not principles, that move the age.”

“Not eight, Harry, please. Half-past six. We must be there before the curtain rises. You must see her in the first
act, where she meets Romeo.”

“Half-past six! What an hour! It will be like having a meat-tea, or reading an English novel. It must be seven. No
gentleman dines before seven. Shall you see Basil between this and then? Or shall I write to him?”

“Dear Basil! I have not laid eyes on him for a week. It is rather horrid of me, as he has sent me my portrait in the
most wonderful frame, specially designed by himself, and, though I am a little jealous of the picture for being a whole
month younger than I am, I must admit that I delight in it. Perhaps you had better write to him. I don’t want to see
him alone. He says things that annoy me. He gives me good advice.”

Lord Henry smiled. “People are very fond of giving away what they need most themselves. It is what I call the depth
of generosity.”

“Oh, Basil is the best of fellows, but he seems to me to be just a bit of a Philistine. Since I have known you,
Harry, I have discovered that.”

“Basil, my dear boy, puts everything that is charming in him into his work. The consequence is that he has nothing
left for life but his prejudices, his principles, and his common-sense. The only artists I have ever known, who are
personally delightful, are bad artists. Good artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly
uninteresting in what they are. A great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of all creatures. But
inferior poets are absolutely fascinating. The worse their rhymes are, the more picturesque they look. The mere fact of
having published a book of second-rate sonnets makes a man quite irresistible. He lives the poetry that he cannot
write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realise.”

“I wonder is that really so, Harry?” said Dorian Gray, putting some perfume on his handkerchief out of a large
gold-topped bottle that stood on the table. “It must be, if you say it. And now I am off. Imogen is waiting for me.
Don’t forget about to-morrow. Good-bye.”

As he left the room, Lord Henry’s heavy eyelids drooped, and he began to think. Certainly few people had ever
interested him so much as Dorian Gray, and yet the lad’s mad adoration of some one else caused him not the slightest
pang of annoyance or jealousy. He was pleased by it. It made him a more interesting study. He had been always
enthralled by the methods of natural science, but the ordinary subject-matter of that science had seemed to him trivial
and of no import. And so he had begun by vivisecting himself, as he had ended by vivisecting others. Human life — that
appeared to him the one thing worth investigating. Compared to it there was nothing else of any value. It was true that
as one watched life in its curious crucible of pain and pleasure, one could not wear over one’s face a mask of glass,
nor keep the sulphurous fumes from troubling the brain, and making the imagination turbid with monstrous fancies and
misshapen dreams. There were poisons so subtle that to know their properties one had to sicken of them. There were
maladies so strange that one had to pass through them if one sought to understand their nature. And, yet, what a great
reward one received! How wonderful the whole world became to one! To note the curious hard logic of passion, and the
emotional coloured life of the intellect — to observe where they met, and where they separated, at what point they were
in unison, and at what point they were at discord — there was a delight in that! What matter what the cost was? One
could never pay too high a price for any sensation.

He was conscious — and the thought brought a gleam of pleasure into his brown agate eyes — that it was through
certain words of his, musical words said with musical utterance, that Dorian Gray’s soul had turned to this white girl
and bowed in worship before her. To a large extent the lad was his own creation. He had made him premature. That was
something. Ordinary people waited till life disclosed to them its secrets, but to the few, to the elect, the mysteries
of life were revealed before the veil was drawn away. Sometimes this was the effect of art, and chiefly of the art of
literature, which dealt immediately with the passions and the intellect. But now and then a complex personality took
the place and assumed the office of art; was indeed, in its way, a real work of art, Life having its elaborate
masterpieces, just as poetry has, or sculpture, or painting.

Yes, the lad was premature. He was gathering his harvest while it was yet spring. The pulse and passion of youth
were in him, but he was becoming self-conscious. It was delightful to watch him. With his beautiful face, and his
beautiful soul, he was a thing to wonder at. It was no matter how it all ended, or was destined to end. He was like one
of those gracious figures in a pageant or a play, whose joys seem to be remote from one, but whose sorrows stir one’s
sense of beauty, and whose wounds are like red roses.

Soul and body, body and soul — how mysterious they were! There was animalism in the soul, and the body had its
moments of spirituality. The senses could refine, and the intellect could degrade. Who could say where the fleshly
impulse ceased, or the physical impulse began? How shallow were the arbitrary definitions of ordinary psychologists!
And yet how difficult to decide between the claims of the various schools! Was the soul a shadow seated in the house of
sin? Or was the body really in the soul, as Giordano Bruno thought? The separation of spirit from matter was a mystery,
and the union of spirit with matter was a mystery also.

He began to wonder whether we could ever make psychology so absolute a science that each little spring of life would
be revealed to us. As it was, we always misunderstood ourselves, and rarely understood others. Experience was of no
ethical value. It was merely the name men gave to their mistakes. Moralists had, as a rule, regarded it as a mode of
warning, had claimed for it a certain ethical efficacy in the formation of character, had praised it as something that
taught us what to follow and showed us what to avoid. But there was no motive power in experience. It was as little of
an active cause as conscience itself. All that it really demonstrated was that our future would be the same as our
past, and that the sin we had done once, and with loathing, we would do many times, and with joy.

It was clear to him that the experimental method was the only method by which one could arrive at any scientific
analysis of the passions; and certainly Dorian Gray was a subject made to his hand, and seemed to promise rich and
fruitful results. His sudden mad love for Sibyl Vane was a psychological phenomenon of no small interest. There was no
doubt that curiosity had much to do with it, curiosity and the desire for new experiences; yet it was not a simple but
rather a very complex passion. What there was in it of the purely sensuous instinct of boyhood had been transformed by
the workings of the imagination, changed into something that seemed to the lad himself to be remote from sense, and was
for that very reason all the more dangerous. It was the passions about whose origin we deceived ourselves that
tyrannised most strongly over us. Our weakest motives were those of whose nature we were conscious. It often happened
that when we thought we were experimenting on others we were really experimenting on ourselves.

While Lord Henry sat dreaming on these things, a knock came to the door, and his valet entered, and reminded him it
was time to dress for dinner. He got up and looked out into the street. The sunset had smitten into scarlet gold the
upper windows of the houses opposite. The panes glowed like plates of heated metal. The sky above was like a faded
rose. He thought of his friend’s young fiery-coloured life, and wondered how it was all going to end.

When he arrived home, about half-past twelve o’clock, he saw a telegram lying on the hall table. He opened it, and
found it was from Dorian Gray. It was to tell him that he was engaged to be married to Sibyl Vane.